Bomb Blast in Bangalore, Royal Challengers and returning to the Chennai Super Kings

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Days 221 - 225 (Tues 16^th – Sat 20^thApril) Bangalore



A very early start for me being around 7am to give me time to get showered and to the station in Chennai to head onwards to Bangalore. The trip took around 6 hours and it’s safe to say that the second class seating is not comfortable at all. It certainly isn’t as good as a virgin voyager service back home.

I arrived mid afternoon and got into a taxi and headed out to my guesthouse. Obviously being the way here the taxi driver took me saying he knew where it was when he didn’t. After a phone call to the guesthouse I waited for a couple of minutes with the taxi driver and a bloke on a motorbike turned up to take me to the right place.

After waiting 10 minutes for someone to attend the reception, if you can call it that I got my room. In the evening I headed into town and towards the cricket ground, around 4km from the guesthouse. Luckily Bangalore is nowhere near as hot as Chennai was yesterday so it’s far more manageable. After stopping in a local place for some food I got to the ground to be told there was no ticket office open and it was sold out. I walked around for 30 minutes or so asking all sorts of people about tickets. When I thought I wasn’t going to get in I was approached by a man with a ticket selling for face value. I felt this was a bit sketchy so I agreed to pay on being let in which I did. The game was great, produced a super over to end it and was well worth the 1200 rupees I paid.

I had a strange experience on the way home. I was maybe ¾ of the way back when a scooter pulled along side of me, this now being 12:30am and stopped. The guy started talking to me asking where I was from, why I was here and where I was staying, I answered the first 2 but definitely not the last one. Then I was asked if I wanted his company for the night. After laughing and telling him to do one I carried on my way back to my guesthouse. I’ve plenty of girls offered to me in various cities from China, Philippines and Thailand etc but I’ve never had a man offer his services. I think the fact I started laughing showed I was not interested and he left pretty sharpish.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday followed pretty much the same routine. Every morning I headed into town to the cricket ground. First day the tickets were not on sale, the second day they were but were very pricey so I left it and thought I could buy online instead. The third day I realised I couldn’t buy online and had to purchase from the ticket office, paying 3300, way more than I’d planned or wanted to pay but at the end of the day I am in India for the IPL so I accepted it and paid it.

The afternoons of these days I pretty much wandered the streets, with no plan in mind to hopefully find something to do or things to see. There is not much to do, that would take up time but there are plenty of impressive buildings in the city. The main things online to do are a water park and snow centre which don’t interest me at all. I spent my evenings eating in the local curry houses and watching the IPL on the tv in my room. Without a tv in my room I may have been a little lost as Bangalore hasn’t a nightlife.

I did get to the stage where I was struggling with the bathroom situation. There was no toilet roll in Bangalore it seemed. As I was running very very short and was out walking one day a great idea crossed my mind. I walked past a pharmacy and saw nappies so figured they’d sell baby wipes. Luckily they did. I did however look a bit of a plank walking through the city centre where I was getting stared at any ways, but this time with a large pink bag of baby wipes. I imagine they all knew exactly what it was for.

Whilst I was in Bangalore on I think the Wednesday there was a terrorist bomb planted which exploded and injured some 16 people. This happened a couple kilometres from my accommodation and you could sort of tell the city was a little bit cautious after that. Luckily they didn’t postpone the cricket on the Saturday night which they were considering.

On Saturday I got all my stuff packed and ready to go then headed into town for food followed by the cricket. I needn’t have bothered with the food as I was in a corporate stand and food was served between innings. I gave it a swerve as I was still stuffed and instead had my 2 free Kingfisher’s instead, the first time I’d seen alcohol in India, 5 days in!! It never takes this long in a country. There were no dodgy encounters on my way home this evening so that made the walk home far more straightforward.



Days 226 - 230 (Sun 21^st – Thurs 25^th April) Chennai



This morning I headed back to Chennai, I wasn’t looking forward to the trip as I didn’t enjoy the 6 hours on the way here, but it turned out not to be to bad. I had the usual fun and games when I arrived in Chennai around 2pm. Flocks of taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers asking me where I wanted to go etc. I got one sorted, showed him the address on my ipod and we proceeded to not be able to find it as commonly practised here. It turns out my hotel was on a little side street of a 23km long road so lucky to find it.

The rickshaw driver decided to help himself to 50 rupees more than we’d agreed. Ok it’s only like 60 pence sterling but he wouldn’t give me the arranged price as we had to drive around the block 3 times. I tried to tell him that at the station he said he knew where it was. He was having none of it. He even came into the hotel and told the owner that he couldn’t find it. I always manage to pick absolute planks to drive me about. If I had small bills I’d have paid what we agreed but I didn’t so he short changed me. I accepted that I wasn’t getting my correct change and headed in. Dropped all my gear of and walked to the stadium to buy tickets for the 2 games while I am in town this time. 750 rupees which is great compared to Bangalore. In the evening whilst sat in the lobby met a lad called Leo who was also going to the cricket so agreed we’d head there together and hang our during the day.

On Monday and Tuesday I pretty much hanged out with Leo, a lad from the Isle of Wight who’s been in India since early January, on my first impressions that’s far longer than I would like to stay here. We spent most of the 2 days just chilling in either the huge mall just around the corner or relaxing in our hotel rooms watching tv. On Monday night we went to the game. It turned out to be an absolute cracker and one of the best T20 games of the season. Not bad considering it was Leo’s first ever game of any sport. Leo left late on Tuesday so the rest of my time would be spent back on my own.

On Wednesday I decided to do some major walking around town. It was about 36 degrees and very humid but I managed a good 3 hours walking around town before I felt knackered. I wandered to Fort George which is just an army base and not impressive. Also down to the sea front where there is a lot nicer area. I think it was called Anna Square. It’s obviously one of the nicer spots in town as its full of people, still no other tourists though. I’ve hardly seen any white folk in my 2 weeks or so here, it’s a bit off putting as locals just stare permanently at me. It seems a lot easier place to be when you have company. It doesn’t seem to bother me as much when the stares are aimed at 2 people as opposed to 1. I thought India would be a bit more used to white people than it seems. I got less stares in China.

Thursday I just enjoyed that I had probably the nicest room I’ve had in a while and lay in bed until early afternoon when I went to the cinema to watch Oblivion, Tom Cruise’s new film. After being pretty much completely baffled by the storyline I headed out to watch my final match in Chennai. Another home win and top class performance topped of a good few days in Chennai, I feel like I am enjoying India a bit more than I was although I’m still not hugely keen on it, there just doesn’t seem a lot to do here which is a shame considering I’ve been in 2 cities that have 8 and 9 million people in them. Plus the heat and more importantly humidity are killing me any time I go outside. I struggle in a Manx summer let alone and Indian one.

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